


67. love drunk

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [259]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY KIDDOS!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 22:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10317926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Everyone throws them a party.





	

Everything downstairs is a riot-babble of party, and upstairs Sarah is looking out the window and wishing she smoked. This feels like a good time to smoke; there’s nervous energy itching through her, and Sarah knows if she smoked it would all come out. Instead she leans on the windowsill and watches snow fall. It’s all grey. She can hear her family humming through the floorboards, feel it knocking against her boots.

And then it isn’t knocking through her boots, it’s knocking at the door. Tap tap and the door opens; Helena is standing there, a big gift bow stuck determinedly on her hair. (It’s already falling off.) She’s glowing and grinning and when she slips into the dark room she seems to light it up.

“Hello, _sestra_ ,” she says. “You are missing party.”

“So’re you, meathead,” Sarah says, as Helena sits down next to her on the bed.

“I said I had to bathroom,” Helena says. “Everybody is wondering where you are. You left before cake, _sestra_.”

“Yeah, like you need me to finish the whole thing,” Sarah says, smirking. Helena just blinks at her and then flattens her mouth into a hard line.

“Oh, come on, Helena, just a joke,” Sarah says.

Silence.

Sarah sighs, drums her feet on the floor. “It’s – it’s _weird_ , innit?” she says finally. “All these people. All these bloody presents. ‘ve never had a birthday party like this, not once. Closest I got was gettin’ high with the old crew ‘n tryin’ to tag a subway car.” She tilts her head to look at Helena. “Worked out like _shit_ , by the way, don’t ever try that.”

“I will not do it,” Helena says obediently. “Do you know it is my first birthday party also?”

“Yeah,” Sarah says. “That’s why I didn’t want to ruin it with my…y’know.” She shrugs a shoulder. The twist of her mouth is uncomfortable and wry.

“I want you to be there,” Helena says. “Because I love them, my family, our family, they are good and kind and very good cake-makers, but you are my sister and I think having you there will make it easier. Because they are all loud, and happy, and I am. Not good at being loud and happy. For very long. So.”

Outside the streetlight flickers. “I’m not that good at it either,” Sarah says finally. “Sorry.”

“We can be bad together,” Helena says. “You can be angry and I can eat too much cake and then have an angry stomach. And then we will run away, if this is what you want.”

“God,” Sarah sighs. She shoves her hands in her pockets. _Alright_ , she thinks, _okay_ , but she can’t say that. “I think Alison’s got Pin the Tail on the Donkey set up,” she offers instead.

“Oh, no,” Helena says. “We played it already. Only not me. Because nobody wanted to give me sharp things with a blindfold on.

“Alison won,” she adds helpfully.

“’course she did,” Sarah sighs. There’s a hollow ache in her chest; part of it is the thought of the celebration downstairs, and part of it is grief for two girls sitting in two separate rooms a decade or so ago and both of them wishing for exactly what the two of them are missing now. Just knowing that someone loves you, and wants to give you a happy day.

“Alright,” she says, sitting up. “You got me, I’m gonna go blow out the bloody candles.”

Helena brightens again. “Donnie Hendrick says we do it together,” she says, “and whoever blows out more candles gets to make wish.”

“Guess Donnie _lied_ ,” Sarah says, “’cause I think it’s just me blowin’ ‘em out.” She makes for the door. She’s faster than Helena, hampered as Helena is by that belly, but the advantage won’t last for long – sure enough, Helena is following her out the door and down the stairs.

“Cheat!” Helena yells, and Sarah laughs and takes the stairs two at a time. At the bottom of the stairs her family is waiting for her, smiling mouths and a few of Alison’s ridiculous party hats. There’s a pile of presents in the corner, and half of them are hers. (There’s a bundle wrapped in old shopping bags that she thinks is Helena’s.) (She got Helena a scarf, because – god help her – she worries.) It’s strange. She meets Felix’s eyes from across the room and he tilts the corner of his mouth up; he gets it, probably. Probably most of them do. Before this, did any of them have a family? One this big? One this aching with love?

Helena goes thumping down the stairs after her, blowing a raspberry to Sarah as she passes and makes a beeline for the cake. _HAPPY BIRTHDAY SESTRAS_ it says in red icing; there’s two iced stick figures below it that are wobbly enough to be Helena’s work. Sarah makes her way more slowly to the table. She squeezes Cosima’s hand. She flips a smirk towards Art. Family, family.

Helena has already put a party hat on by the time Sarah reaches the table; the elastic band of it digs into her chin. She glows. _I’m not good at being loud and happy_ , she’d said quietly in the dark, and Sarah thinks about the way the words had hovered, and Sarah shoves Helena over in the chair so they can both sit in front of the cake. Helena smiles at her, quiet. Sarah tilts her own smile back.

“If any of you sing Happy Birthday I’m right out,” Sarah says.

“I do not know this song,” Helena says. “How does it go.”

“Piss _off_ ,” Sarah says, “you know it, can’t trick me,” and Helena lets out a gulping wheeze of a chuckle. Then she tries to put a party hat on Sarah’s head and Sarah is fighting her off and everyone’s gathering around the table – Siobhan has her clunky old camera, flash, click – and who the hell gave _Donnie_ the lighter and the flames are reflecting of Sarah’s sister’s face and “Happy birthday,” Helena says, and they both blow the candles out.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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